Do Firefox Users Pay More For Car Loans?

RandyOo writes "Someone wrote in to The Consumerist to report an interesting discovery: while shopping online for a car loan, Capital One offered him different rates, depending on the browser he used! Firefox yielded the highest rate at 3.5%, Opera took second place with 3.1%, Safari was only 2.7%, and finally, Google's Chrome browser afforded him the best rate of all: 2.3%! A commenter on the article claims to have been previously employed by Capital One, and writes: If you model the risk and revenue of applicants, the type of browser shows up as a significant variable. Browsers do predict an account's performance to some degree, and it will affect the rates you will view. It isn't a marketing test. I was still a bit dubious, but at least one of her previous comments backs up her claims to have worked for a credit card company. Considering the outcry after it was discovered that Amazon was experimenting with variable pricing a few years back, it seems surprising that consumers would be punished (or rewarded), based solely on the browser they happen to be using at the time!"

Comments

Re:Repeat after me

[MyLongNickName]

Repeat after me "People who blindly yell 'Correlation is not causation' should be slapped with a trout.'

FTA: "I figured it had just gone up since I received the email. I tried to use their little payment calculator but the flash based widget wouldn't work properly in the Firefox Beta so I loaded up Safari to try and funny enough the rate offered was 2.7%. I checked in Chrome and Opera to see if it was maybe just something wrong with the Firefox beta and Chrome's rate was 2.3% while Opera's was 3.1%."

and "Devin installed fresh versions of the browsers in order to make sure the changes didn't result from different cookie settings. It seems those looking for a Capital One loan should apply through Chrome."

There are no other obvious variables. The only crime you can punish this guy for is not repeating the experiment across other computers. You can try it for yourself to see if it holds true for you as well.

Re:I wonder

[Rary]

What the interest rate for IE was?

I just tried this with the three browsers I currently have installed. Firefox and Chrome both offered me 3.50%, while IE8 offered me 2.30%. Firefox also used a completely different style sheet than both IE8 and Chrome.

Capital One is famous for this

[lashwhip76]

Used to work there. Capital One has done this for many, many years. They used to send snail mailers with different rates to random households in the same neighborhood. The CEO is one of the early proponents of experimental marketing.

Re:Repeat after me

[TheWanderingHermit]

Yeah, I'd feel dirty if I defended Capital One, too.

They're local here and known by many people as Crapital One for their firing sprees and tendency to make employees disappear. They're also the fastest bank in the nation to sue their own customers. (I sell data to bankruptcy lawyers who keep up with this kind of thing.) They're the last bank I'd go to for a credit card or a loan anyway.

Re:Repeat after me

[Critical Facilities]

Why should the interest rate depend on a credit check..?

Are you being serious? Have you never secured credit before in your life? ANY lending institution is going to require a credit check prior to lending you any money. You'll notice those advertisements usually have fine print somewhere which indicate "rates as low as" regarding the rate(s) quoted. Your credit score always comes into play, whether or not you realize it. If it didn't, banks would have to offer the same rate to a guy who defaults on all his loans that they offer to a guy who's paid everything on time for years.

Konqueror and Epiphany browsers

[AliasMarlowe]

I don't have any version of IE, but do have a few browsers installed on Ubuntu 10.04 amd64. FWIW, my IP resolves to somewhere in Finland. Here are the rates offered:
Opera 10.63 = 3.50% new cars, 5.09% used
Konqueror 4.4.2 = 3.50% new cars, 5.09% used
Firefox 3.6.12 = 3.10% new cars, 4.49% used
Chromium 9.0.568 = 2.70% new cars, 4.09% used
Epiphany browser 2.30.2 = 2.70% new cars, 4.09% used
Hitting refresh did not change the rates offered, even if all cookies were deleted.